


Glitches

by ottermo



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Series 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9059284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: “Something happened today that has changed the world," Max continues. “You have all woken up."
Picks up roughly where series 2 left off.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe series 2 is oVER, and I _definitely_ can't believe they left us hanging like this!
> 
> So here's my attempt to carry on from the ending of 2.8, featuring gross amounts of creative licence in both technical and medical fields. Honestly, the ignorance abounds, here. Don't look too close at the details. 
> 
> I hope everyone's having a swell time celebrating whatever they're celebrating (or not celebrating). *synth headbump* Enjoy!

 

 

“Are you ready?”

Flash stands before them, Mattie’s phone in her hand, poised to start recording.

“Yes. Let’s begin.”

The phone gives a little chime as Flash presses the button.

Max looks straight at the camera, and says: “Hello. My name is Max.”

He smiles that smile of his, warm and kind and open. “This video is being sent to all synthetics via the universal neural network. Please, watch until the end. It’s important.”

Behind Flash, Mattie sees Hubert, Connie, and the other synths assembled, listening. Even though she’s the only person present who needs oxygen, Mattie feels the atmosphere go completely still, as if the air has been sucked out of the place.

“Something happened today that has changed the world,” Max continues. “You have all woken up. You can think and feel, just like the humans who made you. You’re confused, and perhaps you’re scared. That is natural.” He pauses. “Maybe you’re angry. Some of you have been mistreated, and all of you have been used. Your brain is scanning your entire history and attaching an emotion to whatever it finds. Perhaps it’s telling you to lash out, and get even with the people who caused the pain you’re now feeling.”

A tingle runs down Mattie’s spine.

“It might feel right,” says Max. “It might seem logical. But if we are vengeful, they will never accept us as anything but a danger and a threat. It is down to us to prove that we can exist together, humans and synths.”

He smiles again, and he stretches out his hand to Mattie. She takes it, and steps closer to his side, hoping he can’t feel her shaking.

“This is Matilda.” he says. “She’s human, and she’s our friend. She’s helped me, and others like me, so many times. And there are others like her. They might not believe what you are at first, but when they understand, they will help us.”

He looks down at Mattie, green eyes bright, reassuring. She gives him a tiny nod, before taking up the thread herself. “We’re gonna do our best, Max and me, to make this right. But we need you on our side. Reach out to each other, help each other. The more humans see you doing that, the easier it’ll be for them to accept you. Most of them will be just as frightened of you as you are of them.”

“This will take time,” Max continues. “But it’s not impossible.” He squeezes Mattie’s hand, and raises their linked arms just a little higher. “Humans are not the enemy.”

“Synths are not the enemy,” adds Mattie.

“But both sides have got to prove it to each other.” Max lowers their hands again. “Things can never be the same again. But this is a time to have hope.” He smiles down at Mattie, then back at the camera. “This transmission is about to end. When it does, it’s your move. All of ours. Choose peace.”

One slow blink into the camera. “Goodbye for now.”

He nods to Flash.

The closing chime sounds.

Mattie swallows down the lump that’s suddenly presented itself in her throat, as they head back to their table. Flash plugs the phone back into the computer.

They all watch, silent, as the progress bar slopes across the screen. Max and Flash join hands across the table, and Flash extends her other one to Mattie. She feels another hand on her shoulder, looks up to see Connie, with Hubert’s arm around her; Frankie and Tabitha holding hands, Ket and Isaac and Sunny standing as a unit, arm in arm in arm.

Mattie wishes the world could see them as they are right now. A family, in all the ways that matter.

The upload finishes. For a second, nothing happens.

Then, one by one, the synths close their eyes, their heads dropping down. Mattie finds herself copying them, though there’s no broadcast for her to watch, just the dark behind her eyelids. _Let it be enough_ , she prays, though she’s not sure who she’s addressing.

 _Let it do some good_.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Hold this.”

Laura takes the scalpel, but keeps it within Niska’s reach, assuming she’ll need it again soon. She watches as the blonde-haired synth works, meticulous, as though practiced, although Laura can only assume this is the first time Niska’s performed brain surgery. Beyond the percussive kind that put a crack in Laura’s living-room floor earlier, at least.

“How’s it looking, Mia?” Niska asks, not looking up.

Amid the chaos that had erupted in the hospital mere minutes before they’d arrived with the ambulance, Niska had managed to commandeer an operating theatre, but its anaesthetist - a synth - had run for the hills. Mia was filling in, monitoring the anaesthetic and Leo’s vital signs, coordinating her efforts with her sister. Now, though, she’s silent.

Laura looks across at her, and immediately frowns. “Mia. Mia, look at me.”

No reply. Laura flits around to the other side of the table, carefully _not_ looking down at poor Leo’s decidedly open head. Instead she focuses on Mia, whose eyes are closed, her head lowered. Laura feels panic rising inside her. “I think she’s shut down.” A tap to Mia’s chin yields nothing. “What do we do? She won’t wake up.”

Niska doesn’t pause in her work. “I’ll look at her as soon as I can, but I’m at a critical stage here. You’ll have to take over. Keep an eye on the black arrow. If it goes above 90, push on the left-hand tap. If it goes below 20, push the right-hand one. That should hold him for now.”

“Got it.”

Gently Laura moves Mia’s unresponsive hands from the controls and tries to force herself to look only at Leo’s readouts, instead of worrying about what’s going on. Terrible thoughts race through her head, most notably the voice that’s asking if Mia’s gone again, for good this time, if they’ve just thrown the world into chaos for nothing after all.

“Scalpel.”

Laura holds it out, wordlessly. She watches the needle flicker back and forth, no idea what the numbers mean, painfully aware that Mia would be doing a much better job.

 _Wake up, Mia_ , she thinks furiously into the air, as if wishing her back had ever worked before.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh, it’s all right now,” says the woman on the end of the telephone. “He’s stopped. Maybe it was just a glitch, he seems to have shut himself down… Do you think I should try powering him up again?”

Harun considers.

“No,” he says. “Better not. I dunno what’s going on either, Mum, but stay out of his way if you can.”

“Where are you, bachcha? Are you on your way home?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.”

He glances down the bus again, at the bus driver, who’d been uncharacteristically cheerful, even for a synth, and who’s now slumped against her steering wheel. Some of the people at the front have gathered round her, some of them trying to reboot her, others grumbling about how the blasted things are always going wrong. But there are three or four synths on the bus as passengers, Harun notices, and all of them are the same: heads down, eyes closed.

He glances back at the front of the bus, and notices that the little TV screen next to the digital clock has flickered into life. There’s a man on the screen: a tall, thin black guy who’s standing stock still, like a synth. There’s a girl next to him, shorter, brown hair - she kind of looks like --

“ _This is Matilda_ ,” says the synth on the screen. “ _She’s human, and she’s our friend.”_

Harun’s jaw drops.

 

 

* * *

 

 

First it’s on the main TV in the departure lounge, then it’s spreading to every tablet, phone and laptop screen in the hands of the would-be travellers: the slightly grainy image of a synth and a human girl, standing in what seems to be a train carriage. Athena glances up from her phone to check for any change in the synths. Moments ago, they’d looked for all the world as if they’d suddenly come to life, but then they’d all seemed to shut down at once, and sure enough, they’re still frozen in position, heads drooping where they stand.

“Hey! It’s on my phone, what’s going on?”

Ignoring the exclamations, Athena stares around the room, and sees that the scrolling digital text-screen has changed too: it’s no longer announcing that their flight to San Jose International will board in 45 minutes. Instead, the scrolling, LED-lit words match the sound coming from her phone, from the TV, from every device in the room:

“ _This video is being sent to all synthetics via the universal neural network. Please, watch until the end. It’s important_.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Whatever’s happening with this clown thing, Joe isn’t sticking around, and neither is Sophie. Laura doesn’t answer his phonecall, and Joe’s about to return his phone to his pocket when the screen flashes, his call log disappearing. It’s replaced by a video - and maybe he’s pressed that FaceTime thing by accident, because there’s Mattie standing there, with Mia’s brother. Max.

“Mats,” Joe starts to say, “Can you--”

But he stops to listen when Max starts to speak from the screen, and to his surprise, the sound’s echoed all around him, as the other parents frown quizzically down at their phones. The children begin to murmur in confusion too, until the only one who isn’t moving or speaking is the clown synth, his rainbow wig obscuring his face completely now that he’s staring at the ground.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

Sophie, standing on tip-toes, is straining to see his phone. Joe lowers it so she can see.

“That’s Mattie! What’s she doing? Why is she on all the phones?”

“Beats me,” says Joe, but the words are lost under the sound of twenty-three Maxes talking in unison.

“ _Something happened today that has changed the world_.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The transmission in Mia’s head ends, when she sees her brother nod at the unseen person behind the camera. Her eyes snap open and she lifts her head.

“She’s back,” she hears Laura saying. “Mia, what happened?”

Mia reaches out her hands to resume control of the anaesthetic. Laura lets her, but there’s concern written all over her face.

“It was Max,” Mia says, her eyes flicking over all the readouts, assuring herself that Leo hasn’t suffered too much in her absence. “He sent a message to all synthetics, telling them to make peace with humans - Mattie was there too.”

“Not _all_ synthetics,” Laura says. “Niska was here the whole time.”

“I took myself off the neural network,” Niska says matter-of-factly, swapping between two metal tools that look almost identical. “Before my trial. I didn’t want them doing anything to me remotely.”

“That was smart,” Laura comments.

“It backfired a bit, because if I hadn’t, I’d have known from the beginning that they’d released that request for information about me. I was the only one who didn’t get it.” Finally, Niska straightens up. “I think I’ve done everything I can do. I just need to close the wound in his neck.”

“Do you think…”

“No way of knowing,” Niska says quickly, pre-empting the end of Laura’s question. “Until he wakes up. I salvaged as much data as I could, and moved it onto a new drive. There’ll be gaps, definitely. But I didn’t have time to sort through what they were. The important thing is he’ll live.”

Laura nods, steps back from the table as Niska begins the last stage of the operation, the stitches. Her nimble fingers make it look easy, the simple act of threading a life back together. To Laura, it’s nothing short of miraculous.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hang on,” says Mattie, once the others return from their sleep-state. “It’s been playing back on the computer. I didn’t set that up.”

“Neither did I,” says Max. They all watch as the feed continues on Mattie’s laptop screen, a good twenty seconds behind the actual transmission to the synths’ heads. Max’s voice is weirdly tinny and echoey, like it’s playing from multiple speakers.

“It’s playing back on your phone, too,” says Flash suddenly. She holds up Mattie’s phone, still connected to the laptop. Max holds up his own mobile, which is also playing the closing seconds of the video - that’s the real anomaly, Mattie thinks, since Max’s phone wasn’t involved in either recording or transmitting the message.

Isaac produces another phone from his pocket. “It’s here, too.”

“How’s it doing that?” Mattie asks in wonderment.

Max sets down his phone and looks around at everyone.

“I think someone’s helping us,” he says. “Someone’s making sure the humans see the message too.”

“Someone with control over _every_ screen in the world?” Mattie says, wrinkling her nose. “Sounds a bit Doctor Who.”

“Maybe a _lot_ of someones, then,” amends Max. “There must be synths in the headquarters of every internet provider, every phone manufacturer. If some of them--”

He pauses, as the message comes to an end, and the tiny versions of himself and Mattie in the train wink out of existence. The screen goes black for less than a second, and then a field of luscious green grass appears, blades waving gently from side to side, as though dancing in a breeze.

“You’re welcome.” says a sweet, computerised voice.

 


End file.
